Advent 2 – 12/07/2014

The good news had a beginning according to the writer of Mark – and we have yet to see an end to that good news – Today we have the beginning of the good news of Jesus the Christ and it starts with prophecy – it starts with a people’s relationship to the divine – It is reflected in the words of Isaiah – immortalized even more fully in its King James version by the opening to Handel’s Messiah

Comfort ye – Comfort ye my people – saith your God – saith your God

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem – speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem

And cry unto her – that her warfare – her warfare is accomplished – that her iniquity is pardoned – that her iniquity is pardoned

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness – prepare ye the way of the Lord

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God

So the good news starts with God wishing us comfort – wishing us an end to our trails and a pardon for all our wrong doings

You know with all that is happening around our country these past few months – it might seem that we need a voice crying in the wilderness – crying find peace – peace and an end to your fighting – a pardon for your wrong doings – forgiveness is a hand – for we are in a wilderness of our own blindness

We begin this season of preparation with such a lack of comfort as a people that I truly do believe God is weeping for us – and unless our warfare cease – unless our flaws be healed how are we to see the Glory of the Lord – trapped as we are in our fear – the straight highway out of our desert needs us to prepare it

How are we to do that if we forget who we’re desiring to be in relationship with?

We can know as Isaiah tells us that nothing lasts forever – the valleys shall rise up and the mountains shall be made low – this too shall pass – the crooked twisted parts of our lives can be made straight and the rough patches smooth once more

Everything goes yet our God remains with us – and to be with us we have the good news of Jesus the Christ – we have the promise of the divine to us as a people – to us as individuals small or large – important or meek – rich or poor

It starts in Mark’s version with the people turning back to God in response to the crying out from John the Baptist – John the Baptist who stood at the edge of the wilderness and at the edge of the Promised Land to call a people back into right relationship with God – it begins with our baptism – the cleansing of our spirits in preparation for God to enter into our lives – John baptizing with the water of the Jordan for the forgiveness of sins

Forgivenss of sins – what does that mean – it means in our context today that we acknowledge that we have turned away from the path to the divine – we have been and acted in our all too human ways – we played in the mud of life and got dirty – and – and we want to come back into God’s presence and our first step in doing that is washing away the results of our warfare – with each other – with ourselves – we are done with our fighting – this is what is meant by our warfare is accomplished in the King James version of the prophet – our reading today used the phrase our term is served – our penalty paid – this reminds us today of perhaps someone who has completed their time in prison – the prison of self-centeredness – or completed a time of indentured servitude – our slavery ended

Take comfort my people – you’ve paid your dues – your term is up – you are welcome home – but even here using this metaphor we need to prepare – for things are different in God’s Kingdom than in the wilderness or prison of our own makings

The writer of Mark uses this passage from Isaiah to herald the beginning of what is a seminal shift in the consciousness of a people – prepare you people for the beginning is upon us – Jesus is soon among us and it will turn the world as you know it upside down if you let this good news resonate – Even the great John the Baptist – painted as he was as a vision of Elisha – John the Baptist who was in many ways more famous than Jesus during the first century – John the Baptist was not worthy to even perform the lowliest of functions for the one to come – which was Jesus

Mark was letting us know that we were at the beginning of this change – the beginning of the good news – and we here today are in the middle of it – it is two thousand years later and the good news is still here – God still exists and wants to be in relationship with us – we have hope that no matter what we do – how we stray from into the wilderness there is a way back into a God centered life – and that good news is Jesus – the straight path out of the wilderness – into the promised land – across the Jordon where John stood and baptized – that straight path is God with us – Emmanuel – the one who comes in the name of the Lord

In today’s Gospel John baptizes for the forgiveness of sins – this doesn’t ever happen once and for all because we live in the world – we still wander in the wilderness from time to time – or if not in the wilderness at least not on the path – People misunderstood the role of Messiah and looked for an earthly king – and I contend we misunderstand the nature of God’s Kingdom and think of it as a separate place we go to when we die – Elysium – a Happy Hunting Grounds – the Pearly Gates and miss the blessings all around us here – The promise of Emmanuel is not that we are going to be whisked away to some glorious mansion forever – It is that God is with us – here – the good news was just beginning back in Mark’s day – it is still happening today – that good news is the Jesus is with us – just as he was with the disciples and the early church – that no matter what our trials or iniquities – God wants comfort for us and we can find comfort in Christ if we prepare to receive that comfort – and that’s the rub isn’t it – especially today during this hustle and bustle – especially when we as a people are still treating each other with less than love – even then however there is good news and we get to proclaim it every one of us – Come O’ Come Emmanuel and ransom us who have been captive to our pettiness our hatred – our racism – our warfare – Come make those rough places plain so that we might know your comfort once again